Bara Cailín 3: 49 ‘a small bottle of cheap cola’

Others were far less inclined to take part and try as they may by the end of that day Mac and Gilly hadn’t managed to recruit anybody else.

Most people agreed in principle with the idea and said that they would do what they thought they could get away with but so ferocious were the boiler-suited louts and so dismal were the conditions that it was all that most people could do to stop themselves from getting a beating.

Anyone caught doing anything seemingly untoward would have their food and blankets and any other possessions they might have managed to acquire thrown onto the nearest bonfire. Anyone who tried to intervene in any way would have the same thing happen to him or her.

If at the end of another gruelling day of hard labour you were presented with a curling cheese and coleslaw sandwich and a small bottle of cheap cola I am pretty sure you would much rather eat what you were given than spend the night shivering in the dark with no food and no blanket.